The Boat
by paperbkryter
Summary: A Clark and Chloe ship. Summer's over and both Chloe and Clark make discoveries. None of the Smallville characters belong to me.


Summer was coming to a close in Smallville, Kansas, and Chloe Sullivan was not quite ready for it to end. She'd spent the better part of her summer in Metropolis, working, while her friends remained behind. Much to her dismay, upon returning home two weeks before school was scheduled to begin, she discovered Pete Ross away at football camp and Clark Kent visiting his grandparents in Metropolis. Chloe had been disappointed, hoping to have at least part of her summer spent hanging around with her two best buddies. Instead she found herself alone, brooding, playing cards with her dad in front of the television and lounging around in the back yard.  
  
The back yard of the Sullivan home sloped gently down to the western most banks of Crater Lake where there sat a battered boat house and its adjoining dock. The Sullivans owned no boat, but Chloe often frequented the dock during the early morning hours. The little dock was not only a good place to watch the sun come up; it was also a place where Chloe could go to be alone with her thoughts. She felt she did some of her best writing on the dock, at dawn, looking out over the still dark waters. This morning, however, things were not coming together for her. The legal pad on her lap was blank, and her pen was still.  
  
She felt, rather than heard, the first footfalls upon the wooden dock, and she glanced back over her shoulder as her visitor neared. The sight of him cheered her immediately, although she wondered what had brought him to her so early in the morning.   
  
"Hi."  
  
"Good morning; long time, no see."  
  
With a sigh, Clark sat down beside her with his long legs dangling over the edge of the dock, his feet just inches away from getting wet. Their reflections shared matching toothy grins as they both leaned over to look. The water was still, and their mirrored images were very clear. Mischievously, Clark tapped a toe on the surface of the water, erasing the images in a series of concentric ripples.  
  
Chloe leaned back. "I heard you were home. How were Grandma's milk and cookies?"  
  
Clark continued to peer into the water, idly swinging his feet back and forth. "My grandmother is more tea and caviar than milk and cookies. I spent the week being shown off to her society friends." He made a face and looked up at her. "I had to wear a suit and tie."  
  
"Poor Clark. Was it torture for you not to pick your teeth at the dinner table?"  
  
"Absolutely."  
  
"No belching?"  
  
"Strictly prohibited."  
  
"No passing gas?"  
  
His eyes went wide. "Chloe!"   
  
She wrinkled her nose and grinned, then feigned surprise. "What? I refrained from being vulgar, and besides, the production of gas is a natural by product of the digestive process." She loved to tease him, for he was so easily embarrassed, and his quiet modesty was a foil to her own blunt exuberance.   
  
Shaking his head and smiling wryly, Clark leaned back on his hands. "You've been spending too much time with your dad."  
  
"Ah, and who's fault is that? I can't help it that you were lured to Metropolis by your granny's tea and caviar."  
  
"I'd rather have had milk and cookies."  
  
Chloe ignored him and held up her notepad. "Just look at this!"   
  
Clark turned his head lazily and regarded the blank paper with a blank stare. "I don't see anything."  
  
"That's the point. School starts in a week and I don't have my 'What I Did During Summer Vacation' editorial finished."  
  
"It doesn't look like you even have it started," he replied. "and why does this involve me?"  
  
"What have I done?"   
  
Clark had to laugh at her stricken expression. "Are you having memory lapses now, Chloe? You've been quite busy really. In fact, I think this is the longest conversation we've had all summer."  
  
She shook her head. "Yes, okay. I've 'done' a lot, but what have I 'accomplished'? Nothing. A big, fat zero."   
  
"You don't consider working at the Inquisitor an accomplishment? You've gotten your foot in the door and taken one more step toward your career in journalism." As he spoke, Clark took the pad of paper away from her, and tore off a sheet. "I would consider that an accomplishment."  
  
"I delivered the mail and made coffee, Clark. I'm not going to win the Pulitzer Prize for being able to tell the difference between regular and decaf."   
  
"You have to start somewhere." He peered at her sympathetically from under his shaggy bangs. He was in dire need of a haircut. "What did you expect? Your own column and an expense account? You're just a high school kid."  
  
"I'm a good reporter."  
  
"Nobody said you weren't, but you can't expect to wake up one morning and have it all laid out in front of you. You have no patience, Chloe."  
  
Chloe watched his fingers deftly folding and creasing the sheet of yellow paper as she gathered her thoughts. He was right, of course. She didn't have much patience.   
  
"I just don't want to miss out on anything, Clark." she said softly. "Life goes by too quickly. I want to jump right in and start living it before it gets away."  
  
"And if you rush through it too quickly, you will miss something." Clark leaned over the edge of the dock and gingerly placed the little paper boat on the water. "Sometimes the little things in life are as important as the big things."   
  
The first rays of sunlight were just beginning to filter through the trees on the opposite side of the lake, and bright sparkling motes of it flickered over the water. The tops of the ripples - they were too tiny to legitimately be called waves - were light; but in the hollows the water was still dark. Between the light and the dark the little boat bobbed up and down. It held its own for a while, but it grew more and more waterlogged as it drew further away from where Chloe and Clark watched its progress, and it rode lower in the water with each passing moment. Eventually, as quietly as a sigh, it simply sank below the water to leave no trace of itself. Just like that - it was gone. Chloe felt a slight pang of remorse.   
  
"It wasn't properly prepared," Clark said quietly. "and this lake is too big for such a little boat."  
  
Chloe looked at him, meeting his gaze steadily. She knew what he was trying to tell her, and the caring it showed touched her heart.   
  
"I've missed you, Clark. You keep me grounded." She looked out to where they had last seen the boat. "You're always right, too. I need to slow down a bit, don't I?"  
  
"Maybe you should break the summer down into all the smaller events, step back and take a good look at them one by one, and then maybe you can see more clearly."  
  
Nodding, Chloe picked up the notepad and stared at it. "And just maybe I'll find the little thing I'm overlooking?"  
  
"I'm a firm believer in the philosophy that everything, including all the little things, happens for a reason and we're never left unaffected by them. I'll bet you'll find something from this summer's wild ride you'll be taking with you into the next chapter." He glanced over at her and grinned broadly. "I discovered an utter abhorrence to wearing a tie."  
  
"I discovered an abhorrence to making coffee," she replied, and returned his grin.   
  
Once again Chloe met his gaze, and this time her expression softened. "Clark, do you ever find yourself overlooking the little things in life?"  
  
"I'm six-foot-three Chloe, I overlook a lot."  
  
She hit him with the notepad. "Dork, you know what I mean."  
  
He smiled, ever so slightly, but grew sober quickly. His eyes still held hers, and she found herself surprised by what she suddenly thought she saw in them. It was something she had never seen before - something that made her chest ache a little bit. It was a good ache, however, and it expanded throughout her body as his words confirmed what she saw in his eyes.   
  
"There's one thing I've overlooked for a long time now but I only came to realize it when I was away in Metropolis. There I had time to break my life down into pieces. I took a long hard look at everything, I started seeing things more clearly, and I realized how blind I've really been," he paused, and took a deep breath before continuing. "I've been looking through a telescope at something out of my reach, and ignoring what's been right within plain sight all along. I've been hurting you, Chloe, and I'm sorry. I didn't know."  
  
Chloe bit her lip, and gave her head a little toss, making the newly risen sun flash upon the barrette at each temple. She was shaking inside, but her voice was glib. "It's very man of you to admit it."  
  
"Not really," he lowered his voice slightly. "A real man," and Chloe laughed at him, "would have spared you the philosophizing and gotten on with the kissing part." He finished quietly, still looking into her eyes. "I have missed you, too, Chloe. Our lives seem to be drawing us apart, and I don't want that to happen. Especially not now."   
  
In retrospect, Chloe would shake her head at her reaction. She started to respond with a denial; a vehement exclamation regarding his "drawing apart" statement, but her mind jumped back to the first part of his speech and got caught there.  
  
"I - what? Kissing part?" she squeaked. "What kissing part?"  
  
He leaned a little bit closer, and his breath was soft against her face. "This kissing part."  
  
It wasn't a long kiss, or a breathtakingly passionate kiss, but rather loving all the same. His lips met hers with the softness of a rose petal, lingered for the span of a long drawn breath, and left behind the warmth of a pool of sunlight. Brief it was, but it held a promise of things to come.   
  
He'd also given her the "little thing" she needed.   
  
Chloe let out the breath she'd been holding in a little gasp as he gently brushed the back of his fingers across her cheek.  
  
"I have to go. I have chores to do, but I wanted to check in with you." He stretched, and Chloe, still stunned by the kiss, watched rather vaguely as he rose to his feet. "Am I still the top of your speed dial?" he teased.   
  
Her voice was a whisper. "Yeah."  
  
"Call me. Come over later and I'll help you with the article."  
  
Her eyes were bright. "You already have."   
  
Clark said nothing, but he grinned wryly. "Come over anyway," he whispered.  
  
Chloe looked over her shoulder as he walked off the deck and up the hill, then she turned back to the bright blue expanse of the lake before her. Suddenly Smallville didn't seem like such a bad place after all, and rushing off to Metropolis for a hustle bustle career in journalism didn't seem quite as important. The need to escape was gone. Her mind was filled with the memory of that brief kiss, the affection it had contained, and the future it suggested.  
  
Putting the legal pad upon one knee and picking up her pen, Chloe bent to her long avoided task.  
  
"What I Did During Summer Vacation," she wrote, then raised her head to look.   
  
The words stared up at her, stagnant.   
  
She frowned.   
  
No.  
  
Crossing out the first phrase, she rewrote it.   
  
"What I Learned During Summer Vacation."  
  
And the words began to flow. 


End file.
